Tuesday, December 17, 2024

PT-2 "Hope Is Secured by Abiding" (1 John 2:28)

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/17/2024 9:31 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                      Focus:  PT-2 “Hope Is Secured by Abiding”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                         Reference:  1 John 2:28

 

            Message of the verse:  28 Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.”

 

            I want to pick up where I left off in my last SD on this verse, I hoped to get a little further than I did, but there was some different elements that happened and so I did not get as far as I wanted to.  So I want to pick up from where I left off yesterday and talk about the word abide this evening.  Abide translates a form of the verb mento, which means “to stay” or “to remain.”  Now this is a term that John the Apostle used rather often in his New Testament writings.  John uses this word “abide” for instance, it appears nearly a dozen times in the 15th chapter of his gospel writing.  It is there Jesus instructed the eleven apostles, as Judas was by this time gone.  Let us look at John 15:4 "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.”  Now earlier in this second chapter of 1 John, John again focused on the importance of abiding in Christ and the general significance of aspects of abiding:  “The one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked” (v. 6).  MacArthur writes “Neither Christ nor John referred to some mystical, elitist spiritual experience.  They commanded believers to persevere daily and sustain their faith in the gospel and in the Christ of the gospel.”  “In order to do that, believers must continue to love and obey the Scripture, submit to the direction of the Holy Spirit, and remain committed to the truth they first received (cf. 4:12-13, 15-16; 2 John 2, 9).  Such abiding precludes clinging to a habitual pattern of sin.”

 

            Now John’s teaching that true Christians abide in Him reinforces Jesus’ statement found in Matthew 24:13 “"But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.”  John’s words are also consistent with Paul’s exhortation that he gave to the Colossians to continue in the faith:

 

21 And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, 22 yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach —  23  if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister” (Col. 1:21-23).

 

MacArthur writes that “No one who professes to believe the gospel but then permanently abandons the faith possesses eternal life.  Earlier in this letter John wrote “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been  of us, they would not remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us” (2:19).  Only those who remain faith to the Lord and His Word, and give evidence of the fruits of righteousness (5:1-5, 10; Matt. 7:17-18; 12:33, 35; John 3:21, 36; 13:35; 2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 5:22-23; 6:7-8; Eph. 5:9; James 2:14-26; cf. Isa. 3:10; Jer. 17:9-10) by the indwelling power and presence of the Spirit (cf. Rom. 8:9; 1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19; Gal. 4:6) are truly saved.  As John penned earlier in this chapter: 

 

“23 Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also. 24 As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. 25 This is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life” (Col. 2:23-25).

 

12/17/2024 10:03 PM

 

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